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Interrupting Punctuation Punctuating Interruption; Interrupting Punctuation An Investigation of the Interruption at Iliad 1.292 By examining the punctuation of Venetus A and drawing comparisons to texts from the Serbo- Croatian oral tradition, I shall show that the interruption at Iliad Book 1 line 292 1 is more forceful than it appears at first, but ultimately still constrained by the Homeric style and the unique composition of the scene in which it occurs. Along the way I shall question the modern editorial stance on punctuation, point out an apparently unnoticed feature of Venetus A’s punctuation and consider the possible restrictions of the Greek language and of the poem’s oral features upon juxtaposed dialogue. I shall then conclude with the remark that 292 is the pinnacle of Book 1. εἰ δέ µιν αἰχµητὴν ἔθεσαν θεοὶ αἰὲν ἐόντες τοὔνεκά οἱ προθέουσιν ὀνείδεα µυθήσασθαι; Τὸν δ' ἄρ' ὑποβλήδην ἠµείβετο δῖος Ἀχιλλεύς· 292 ἦ γάρ κεν δειλός τε καὶ οὐτιδανὸς καλεοίµην 2 εἰ δὴ σοὶ πᾶν ἔργον ὑπείξοµαι ὅττί κεν εἴπῃς· With these verses we are told that Achilles interrupts Agamemnon 3. However, this interruption seems lacking, as Pulleyn says: “but for this comment by the poet, we might not have suspected that Achilles’ words were an interruption” 4. I will argue that this is not the case; that the interruption is perceptible without the poet’s narration and that this narration, although incidentally identifying the interruption, primarily serves another purpose. Our search for other interruptive elements must start with Agamemnon’s utterance immediately before the interruption. Line 291 in particular has proved troublesome, as we can see from the range of translations on offer: have they put insults on his lips as well? (Fitzgerald 5) 1 Line numbers, unless otherwise specified, refer to Book one of the Iliad . 2 From the text of Allen (1931). 3 For a defence of ὑποβλήδην meaning ‘interruptingly’ cf. Pulleyn (2000) on 293 (which, I note in passing, is mislabelled – it should be 292). 4 Pulleyn (2000) on 293; see also Kirk (1985) on 292. 5 Fitzgerald (1974) p.9. 1/16 yet they have not given him the right to speak abusively. (Lattimore 6) is it for that reason that his revilings run forth for him to utter them? (Pulleyn 7) is it on that account that his revilings rush forward for utterance ? (Murray/Wyatt 8) The commentators too find considerable difficulty with the line 9. Numerous problems are raised: What is the subject (θεοὶ or ὀνείδεα)? What is the verb (προθεω or προτιθημι)? Should it be understood as subjunctive? How are we to take μυθήσασθαι (purpose or epexegetic)? What about οἱ (dative of possession or reference)? Almost every grammatical aspect of the line is troubling. And though neither Kirk nor Pulleyn thinks the line corrupt, none of the options they offer are very persuasive and we may well be tempted to agree with Leaf’s conclusion: “I see no choice but to regard the passage as hopelessly corrupt” 10 . However, declaring a line corrupt should be a last resort. Here I think there is another explanation. If Achilles really did interrupt Agamemnon, as we know, courtesy of the narrator, he did, then we would not expect Agamemnon’s utterance to be complete. Perhaps, if he had continued, grammatical coherence would have developed and so the lack of such coherence suggests an interruption. In addition to the troublesome grammar, there is another aspect of line 291 that suggests an interruption. In the comparison of line 291 above, Lattimore, unlike the other translators, did not consider Agamemnon’s utterance a question. This raises the role of the punctuation in providing a problematic (as we have seen above) impression of grammatical completeness that may otherwise be lacking. If Agamemnon’s utterance is genuinely interrupted, we would not expect the text to be punctuated as it currently stands 11 . Yet what grounds have we for disputing the punctuation? The major modern editions all punctuate 291 as a question 12 . Usually the place to start in a matter of textual variance is the critical apparatus. However, none of these editions indicate any alternative reading. Yet we would not expect them to do so; the punctuation of the manuscripts we possess originates in the editorial decisions of 9 th -10 th 6 Lattimore (1951) p.209. 7 Pulleyn (2000) p.89. 8 Murrey rev. Wyatt (1999) p.35. 9 Kirk (1985) and Pulleyn (2000) on 291. 10 Leaf (1990) on 291 quoted by Kirk (1985) p.82 11 In English we would expect, say, a dash (cf. Lennard (2005) p. 136); as for Greek, we shall see later. 12 Namely Allen and Munro, West, and van Thiel. 2/16 century Byzantine scribes 13 and, as they were working at over 1500 years’ distance from the time of Homer 14 , it is disregarded by modern editors and not reported in the critical apparatus 15 . While 1500 years is a long time, it is 1000 years closer to Homer than today and although our modern preferences for punctuation may differ markedly from those of the Byzantine scribes, it seems reasonable that, as Rijksbaron recommends 16 , editors should not be over hasty in setting aside manuscript punctuation. Surely, like other textual features, punctuation ought to be subject to critical scrutiny, to be determined by “considerations of sense or usage or palaeography” 17 and with consideration of the manuscript tradition 18 . Let us start with a consideration of our line, 291, as it appears in Venetus A (see image 1 in Appendix A: Manuscript Images). However, this doesn’t seem to help our argument. The line is quite clearly punctuated with a semicolon indicating a question. If our modern editions as well as this ancient manuscript have all independently reached the conclusion that the remark is a question, surely their position is unassailable? But consider the following from Book 1 19 : 1. Ten places where our text is punctuated as a question, but the manuscript is not: 8; 123; 134; 151; 202; 362; 365; 414; 540; 552 20 2. One place where the manuscript is punctuated as a question, but our text is not: 157 21 3. Two places where both our text and the manuscript punctuate as a question: 22 203; 291 13 Cf. Rijksbaron (2007) pp.68-9 n.150. 14 th Edwards for example offers the 8 century B.C. as a date for Homer (2005) p.310. 15 Cf. West (1973) pp.53-4; Rijksbaron (2007) pp.68-9. 16 Rijksbaron (2007) pp.68-9 and passim. 17 Housman (1905) p.xiii, speaking purely of textual readings, not punctuation (which, I believe, he only mentions twice in his introduction, at xix and xxxvi). 18 Cf. Rijksbaron’s comments concerning the utility of Byzantine punctuation and his exemplary consideration of MS punctuation in his edition of Plato’s Ion (2007) p.68 and passim. 19 This analysis is based on my comparison of the punctuation of the entirety of Book 1 of Murray’s 1999 Loeb edition of the Iliad with Book 1 as it appears in the images of the Venetus A manuscript available on the Homer Multitext Project (http://www.homermultitext.org/). 20 Images 2.1-10 in Appendix A. 21 Image 3 in Appendix A. 22 Images 4.1-2 in Appendix A. 3/16 Initially it seems as if questions are haphazardly punctuated, but there is more to it than this. After a consideration of 34 miniscule manuscripts Charles Brewster Randolph formulated the following general principle: “the sign of interrogation does not follow questions introduced by an interrogative pronoun or adverb” 23 . This matches our data very neatly: of the twelve places in Book 1 where our text punctuates as a question 24 , ten are introduced by an interrogative marker 25 and in nine of these cases the manuscript fails to punctuate as a question 26 . However, Randolph noticed something odd in five of his manuscripts: “[these five] do not contain the semicolon with interrogative value,” and it just so happens that one of them is our manuscript – Venetus A 27 . At first this is puzzling. What can it possibly mean? We have three examples of just such a use 28 : οὔρεά τε σκιόεντα θάλασσά τε ἠχήεσσα ; 157 ἦ ἵνα ὕβριν ἴδῃ Ἀγαµέµνονος Ἀτρεΐδαο; 203 τοὔνεκά οἱ προθέουσιν ὀνείδεα µυθήσασθαι; 291 The answer lies in the assumption that the semicolon indicates a question. To quote the opening of Randolph’s article: “The punctuation in Greek minuscule manuscripts strikes one as varium et mutabile semper ”29 – punctuation marks differ widely between and even within manuscripts, there was no standardised system 30 . In this manuscript the semicolon does not indicate a question 31 . It is just as Randolph goes on to say: “[in Venetus A] no effort is made to distinguish questions from statements” 32 . But if it does not indicate a question, what does it indicate? Here a comment of Rijksbaron’s proves particularly interesting: “In the Aldina, as well as the more recent MSS, like S, F, Par. 1811 and Vat. 23 Randolph (1910) p.310; also cf. Rijksbaron (2007) p.246 n.358, “The variation in punctuation after the two question types—specifying, x- or word-questions on the one hand and yes/no -questions on the other—is no coincidence, for the two types were strictly distinguished in antiquity, and called πύσματα (or πεύσεις) and ἐρωτήματα (or ἐρωτήσεις), respectively”. 24 i.e. all of the places under points 1 and 2 above. 25 8 (τίς); 123 (πῶς); 151 (πῶς); 202 (τίπτ᾿); 203 (ἦ); 362 (τί); 365 (τί); 414 (τί); 540 (τίς); 552 (ποῖον) 26 203 is the exception – it has an interrogative marker (ἦ), but is nevertheless punctuated as a question – however, see the discussion below.
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